Page 117 of Lustling

Deimos doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. But I feel it—the scream inside him trying to claw its way out. The kind of rage that could shatter the world.

When he finally moves, it’s to drag me into him, crushing me to his chest like he could anchor me to this place, to him. Like he’s holding me against every nightmare version of the timeline where I was lost.

“You’re stronger than you know,” he says, lips at my ear, voice a growl wrapped in gravel. “You’re a full-blooded succubus. Not like me. I’m only half. You’ve got power in your blood older than kingdoms. If you wanted, you could eclipse me.”

I shake my head, choking. “I can’t. He’s starving me. Food. Touch. Everything. I feel like I’m… unraveling.”

He stiffens. His rage flares hotter, darker. His eyes drop to my throat to the necklace. He stares at it, expression blackening. His jaw ticks, teeth grinding.

“What?” My voice trembles.

He doesn’t answer. Not with words. His mouth crashes into mine.

It isn’t tender. It’s war.

His kiss is fire and ash and fury, like he’s trying to burn the leash off me with his tongue. Like he’s trying to drag me back from the grave with his mouth alone. It’s bruising. Consuming. His.

I melt into it, sobbing, tasting my tears and the hunger ripping beneath his skin.

When he pulls back, I’m shaking. Breathless.

“We’re coming for you soon,” he promises, voice low, dangerous, absolute. “And when we do, he’s going to bleed for every second you’ve spent in his hands.”

“Deimos—” I gasp, reaching for him as the fog thickens again, pulling him away.

“I love you,” I whisper, just before the dream unravels.

And then?—

I wake.

Gasping. Tears streaking my cheeks. The choker burning like ice around my throat.

SEVENTY-ONE

Cassiel’s voice is calm, but I hear the tension under it. “I think it will work,” he says. “But I cannot guarantee anything.”

“That is not exactly comforting,” I mutter.

He smirks, faint and private, but it does not reach his eyes. He is worried too. He is better at hiding it. I lie back on the bed and stare at the cracked ceiling. Shadows move there sometimes, whispering things I would rather not hear. Tonight I try to ignore them.

Bastion sits in the corner, silent and watchful. He has not said much since we began. I can feel the weight of his anger pressing on the room like thunderclouds. We are strung too tight. Too many hands on too many knives.

Cassiel’s fingers press lightly to my temple. “Close your eyes,” he says softly. “Think of her. Not the dream. Not the door. Think of the way she smells, the way she laughs. The way the bond used to glow when she smiled.”

I breathe out slow and hard. I hate this part, the surrender, the quiet. But I do as he asks and the world slips sideways.

Fog rises, thick and wet, clinging like silk. Sound muffles. Then her name threads through the mist, Cassiel’s voice calling, small and sure, “Lillien.”

I push forward through it, moving like a blade through smoke. My body is half-there, half-not, dream and memory braided together. And then I see her.

Lillien, naked and shaking. Her eyes are huge and burning, red rimmed. A necklace of garnet and obsidian at her throat catches what little light there is and throws it back cruel and false. Her lips open and my name falls from them like a prayer.

“Deimos.”

I catch her before she collapses. Her skin is fever hot and too light. She smells like ash and jasmine and starvation. I hold her like the world could steal her if I let go.

“I do not have long,” I say, because words keep me tethered to sense. “Cassiel is holding the veil. It will not last.”